WASHINGTON,
July 1, 2013 - President Obama used part of his trip to Africa over the weekend
to highlight the administration's efforts to bolster the agriculture sector in
Senegal and other African countries.

Obama
said the New Alliance on Food Security program and the Feed the Future program
are helping to promote development and deliver food aid in “new and creative
ways.”

“I
just want to emphasize how important the work that we're doing on agriculture
is,” Obama said. “Every dollar that we're putting in, we're getting a huge
amount of private-sector dollars. We're focusing on how people become more
productive as opposed to simply giving them food or giving them medicine.”

On
his trip, Obama announced the administration will give $7 billion to boost
efforts to provide electricity in sub-Sahara Africa.

“Access to
electricity is fundamental to opportunity in this age. It's the light that
children study by, the energy that allows an idea to be transformed into a real
business,” Obama said. “It's the lifeline for families to meet their most basic
needs, and it's the connection that's needed to plug Africa into the grid of
the global economy.”

Obama
noted that in countries such as Senegal and Tanzania, about 70 percent of the
people are involved in agriculture and in need of U.S. assistance.

“You
can see each one of those small farmers suddenly increasing their income by 20
percent, 30 percent, 50 percent,” Obama said. “That then becomes the basis for
a nascent middle class in those countries; that in turn can help create local
manufacturers, local consumer goods. And eventually, these then become
export markets for the United States.”

Obama
said the issue does not only involve reducing hunger and poverty, but also
“creating the basis for the entire continent to get incorporated into world
markets in a way that ultimately will benefit not just Africa but also the
United States.”

During the
program's first year, private sector companies from Africa and around the world
offered to invest more than $3.7 billion in New Alliance countries.

The
administration said, as part of the program, Ghana Nuts, a former recipient of
U.S. government assistance, is now a leading agro processor and signed a letter
of intent under the New Alliance to promote soya and expand maize procurement
and processing in Ghana.

The
administration said the Feed the Future program, which is the administration's
global hunger and food security initiative, focuses on smallholder farmers, and
particularly women.

The
program has helped more than seven million smallholder farmers adopt improved
agricultural technologies or practices and brought nearly four million hectares
of land under improved cultivation and management practices, according to the
administration.

In this week’s Open Mic, Ambassador Darci Vetter, Chief Agriculture Negotiator with the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, provides an update on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPA) negotiations, as well as the ongoing Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) talks. Vetter says the nation’s agriculture industry cannot afford to be isolated from the other ninety-five percent of the globe’s population or growth in its middle class. Support from farmers and ranchers will be crucial in advancing an ambitious trade agenda, she adds.